The general character of the Welsh language in composition is that of a certain stateliness, and erett grandiloquence, the reverse of what would probably be expected by strangers who know fat how long it has been the language of the peasantry alone and discountenanced by the higher classes. In its effect, it reminds a reader more of the Spanish than the German. It has been sometimes praised for its conciseness, but in its present state it may be much more justly characterised as diffuse. The words lin the first paragraph of the ' Pilgrim's Progress,' " I looked and taw him open the book and read therein, and as he read he wept and trernbled," are thus rendered in the Welsh translation by Thomas Jones, published at Shrewsbnry in 1699, " Edrychais gwelais ef yu egor y Llyfr ac yn darllain ynddo; a phan ddarllenceld ef wflodd a chrynnodd." In this there are exactly as many words as in the original, natnely, nineteen ; but in tho translation published at Caerniatthen In 1771, and reprinted in 1854, the passage stands thus, " MI a etItychals ac nil gWelaia ef yn agor y llyfr ac yn darlien ynddo, ac fel yr odd efe yn clarllen fe wylodd ne a glint:mid," and the number of words is twenty-eight. The same proportions seem to prevail between the language of the two translations in general.
The Welsh are strongly attached to their language: The Irish, so vehemently opposed to the Satoh in religion and politics, are in tho matter of language far from Obstinate. Daniel the orator, and Moore, the patriotic poet, were ignorant and careless of the Celtic tongue. It is said that the peasantry are so anxious to secure to their elilldren that mastery of English of which they feel the Want theragelves, that they have a forfeit for speaking Irish, and enforce it on tho children in their cabins with as much severity as a forfeit of a similar kind is enforced on the pupils in an English bearding-school. Under the influence of this feehiog the Celtic language of Ireland appears to be slowly but surely losing ground, while the English language is indebted to Ireland for some Of its fiheat poets and novelists, and most brilliant orators, with a long array of literary labourers Of a less arnbitions clue. With `Vales all this is different. The Connalsaioners of Inquiry into the State of Education Iii Wales, give it as their opinion in their official report, that "the Welslitnan a mastery over his oivn language fat beyond that which the nglishman of the Bathe degree has over his;" and that and propriety of eipression to an extent mote than merely colloquial, is a feature in the intellectual character of the Welsh." But the Welsh are eloquent and poetical in their own language only. They have contributed no bard, no orator, no historian, no dramatist, no preacher, of the first, or the second, or even tho third rank, to the literature of England.
The use of two languages In the Same country cannot but be con sidered as an evil, fur it is an element not of concord but of discord. Tho experience of the dontinent, iu the cage of and Danish, and of German and Hungarian, showe that undet certain citenunatainees it may even become a source of civil war. It is an admitted fact that antipathy and animosity towards the Saxon still lurk among that portion of the Welsh population to when] English is a language either entirely unknown, or known, but imperfectly. There is n well-authenticated story that in the time of the Commonwealth, Sir Edward Stradling, of St. Donate Castle, flying from the victorious Ilonindlieada after a lost battle, came to the river Taff, and finding the bridge broken down, asked in the English language of a Welsh peasant who was standing near, where he might safely ford the stream, Ile was told in reply, "Keep straight orOor that is the shortest and best way to thy home." Sir Edward rode on to the bank, and chanced before entering the water to speak a few words to his soldiers in Welsh, on which the peasant, perceiving he was not an Englishman, called out in haste to him not to enter the stream at that point, for if so he would lose his life. There was a whirlpool on the spot, to which the malignant peasant, when ho thought Sir Edward a Saxon, had directed the stranger with a view to drown him. Such feelings are far from extinct, even in modern times, unless those who are well acquainted with Wales are much mistaken.
The Welsh language Is now in a very flourishing state. The fate of its neighbour, the Cornish, which gradually perished of mere neglect, led to the supposition that the Welsh would also disappear from the same cause; and indeed Mr. Wynne, the president of the Asiatic Society, himself a Welshman, referred to the decline of Welsh as a proof of the efficacy of the .non-interference system in such cases, in a discussion on the subject of endeavouring to introduce the English in the place of some of the native languages of India. More than a century ago, Goronwy Owen, the Welsh poet, related in one of his letters (printed in the Cambrian Register that in a discussion on the Welsh language with another W elsilmao, Owen, the translator of Juvenal into English, " the wicked imp, with an air of complacency and satisfaction, said there was nothing in it worth reading, and that to his. certain knowledge the English daily got ground of it, and he doubted not but in a hundred years it would be quite lost" The experience of the time that has since elapsed has shown that Mr. Owen was mistaken. "For upwards of ten centuries," says the Rev. W. J. Rees, in an address delivered in 1821 on the formation of the Cambrian Society in Gwent, " since the reign of Offs, who made his celebrated dyke to prevent incursions of the Welsh into his territories, the Welsh language has receded comparatively but little within the boundary, especially in some parts of North Wales ; and in other districts, when the long lapse of time since the conquest by Edward I., and the intimate incorporation by Henry VIII., and the great encouragement given for the attainment of the English language are considered, it has gained less ground than could be expected. Au Englishman travelling the public roads of the principality often meets with persons who speak English, and those whom he has occaiion to address at the inns are able to accommodate themselves to his language : the gentry he may visit speak English, and those who call upon them probably use the same language in his hearing ; and from these slight facts which come to his knowledge, he erroneously concludes that the English is the prevailing language of the country; It is only one who has resided a long time in the interior, having intercourse with the common people, that can form a true estimate of the extent of the Welsh language ; and most persons will readily assent to the truth of the assertion, that the Welsh is the sole living speech not only of thousands, but of tens of thousands, and even of some hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants of the principality." (` Cambro-Briton,. vol. iii., p. 229.) It not only holds its ground in the Old World, but has emigrated to the New. While Dr, Macleod, in the preface to his ' Leabhar Iran Cnoc,' exulted in the hope that if Gaelic is destined to perish In the Highlands, it will survive beyond tho Atlantic in the living speech of numbers greater than ever spoke it in Europe, the Rev. T. I'rice, in his ' Ilanes Cymru,' related with similar exul tation that he had received from America some numbers of a Welsh periodical, the ' Cyfaill yr Hen Wl:ul; or Friend of the Old Country,. which was publishing at Now York, This progress con tinues. In an account of the press in the United States in 1861 it ie mentioned that five Welsh newspapers are printed in that country, a circumstance which may probably lead some future Celtic historian to Infer the truth of the belief, so firmly entertained by some Welsh men, that the language has flourished on the American continent since the days of Modes:. At the same time the periodical press of Wales itself is increasing yearly, while in the first number which ever appeared of a Welsh newspaper, not fifty years ago, a notion was stated that the language would hardly survive that generation. Eisteddvods or Bardic meetings, formerly rare, are now frequent and more and more popular. The call for bishops who understand the Welsh language has been loud enough tp compel the attention of the English cabinet. At the present moment the patriotic aspiration so often on the lips of Welshmen, " Oes y byd i'r iaith Gyrnreig,"—" May the Welsh language last as long as the worldr—appeara in small danger of non fulfilment.